Is the Future of ‘Saturday Night Live’ on Netflix?
Ted Sarandos, CEO and Chief Comedy Nerd at Netflix “could have basically destroyed SNL the last six years by doing Friday night SNL,” Bill Simmons opined on his podcast this week. But “he loved the show and he didn't.”
Don’t rule it out, says Matt Belloni, former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and current host of The Town podcast. He says rumors have been around forever that Sarandos might launch a Friday or Sunday night sketch comedy show, perhaps even cherry-picking some Saturday Night Live talent to do so. Sarandos has too much respect for producer Lorne Michaels to actually do it today, “but post-Lorne, all bets are off.”
Simmons co-signed on the idea: “The moment Lorne leaves, I think Netflix just takes that entire corner.”
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Makes sense. Sarandos indeed loves comedy — witness the millions he’s spent to make Netflix the king of stand-up specials — and of late, he seems especially enamored with live comedy events. Chris Rock wouldn’t let anyone know what he thought about The Slap until he unleashed live on the streamer. Last year’s live Tom Brady roast reverberated for the rest of the year, making a star of Nikki Glaser in the process. And what was funnier than the Jake Paul/Mike Tyson fight? Netflix knows that live is its future.
Belloni believes a live sketch-comedy show is inevitable. “NBC will walk right into it because once Lorne leaves, they will start cost-cutting on the show because it’s hugely expensive for what it is,” he says. “Lorne has been able to beat them back. But they will start to cut costs, and Ted will recognize it and he’ll swoop in.”
“If Netflix had done this two years ago on Friday nights, I think SNL would’ve been in real trouble. They would’ve gotten the jump on them,” offered Simmons.
One other way for Netflix to take out the show? “SNL just goes away from mid-May to late September,” Simmons said. “And every four years you have these political conventions. That’s the most fun part to parody. Netflix could have just launched a Friday night SNL show last May and crushed it for four months. And by the time SNL came back, it would have felt like a dinosaur.”
A Netflix version of Saturday Night Live could also fix some of the problems that have plagued the original since the beginning. Why does the show insist on starting scripts on a Monday for a show that runs on Saturday? Here’s an idea: Air a new live sketch show once a month with a properly rehearsed and rested cast. And for better or worse (see Chappelle, Dave), there are no network censors at Netflix. After 50 years of negotiating whether or not a comedian can say “asshole,” this hypothetical new show could push boundaries in ways a network comedy program never could.
It’s mind-blowing that Saturday Night Live has survived for 50 years. Give the show flowers for that if nothing else. But like Michaels, the counterculture-icon-turned-institution might finally be nearing its retirement years. Netflix is the logical candidate to grab the comedy torch and keep running.
